Thursday, July 24, 2008

Tonight we completed our first "bean challenge" dinner: Pasta with Cooked Tomatoes & Beans. It was a success in the sense that it was tasty and nutritious. It was not a success in the popular-with-the-kids department!

A lesson was reinforced tonight: our children simply do not like cooked tomatoes. They enjoy raw tomatoes. I remember disliking most forms of tomatoes growing up, so I can give them a break with this issue.

So here's the recipe if you want to try it at home. At least I liked it!

Pasta with cooked tomatoes and beans (as always, adjust to your own tastes)

1/4 cup olive

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1/2 shallot finely chopped

2 tbsp chopped parsley (stems removed)

1 green onion finely chopped (optional)

1 large can tomatoes (you can choose to drain or not)

We buy "Muir Glen Whole Organic" canned tomatoes. This brand is the best tasting, and the "whole" tomato has more flavor than the diced

We used the "Fire Roasted" variety, so it gave the tomatoes a nice smoky flavor

1 can northern beans, rinsed and drained

We used Westbrae Naturals brand - the best tasting canned bean in my opinion - usually in the natural foods aisle

Pasta of you choice (we used spaghetti) cooked in salted water

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese to top it off

Heat the olive oil in a skillet

Add garlic, shallot, parsley, and green onion (optional)

Cook until garlic is translucent

Add 1 can whole tomatoes - cook 8 - 10 minutes and chop them up in the skillet with your spoon

Add the beans last - don't stir a lot, they'll get mushy. Just let them heat up a bit with the other flavors

Spoon on top of pasta, or...mix the pasta in the pan with the tomato and bean mixture for a few minutes to heat up the pasta and coat it. I like this technique.

Top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Serve with a side of steamed vegetables (broccoli, in our case)

Dinner is served!

I once heard that photographing food is one of the most difficult things to photograph, in order to make it look appetizing. So if this isn't looking to good to you, rest assured: It tasted great!

By the way, here is a technique I use when cooking for our children. The kids don't like flecks of green in their food (in this case parsley and green onion), so I make one small batch without green flecks (on left) and green flecks on the right. It's not hard to have 2 batches going at the same time.

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Welcome to "Striving Green", the blog that focuses on one family's attempt to become more environmentally friendly by the standbys - eating organically, keeping it local, reusing, reducing, and recycling. I call this blog "Striving Green", with an emphasis on the "striving". We're not perfect; we're learning as we go along.

I'll tell about the "green" successes and challenges we have with day-to-day issues as well as new discoveries I stumble upon. I'll pose questions to readers, looking for your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve upon reducing our consumption of resources. Sharing information and "making ripples" is something I enjoy. I hope you enjoy reading and become inspired to "strive green" too.